WASHINGTON — A Missouri slaughterhouse is recalling thousands of pounds of beef products distributed to a grocery store chain and also two restaurants because the processor failed to follow federal regulations aimed at preventing mad cow disease.
Fruitland American Meat in Jackson, Mo., is recalling 4,012 pounds of beef processed at the facility between September 2013 and April 2014, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Thursday.
The recalled meat was packaged in 40-pound cases of bone-in ribeye and quartered beef carcasses, and then shipped to a Whole Foods distribution center in Connecticut that serves stores in New England, as well as to two restaurants, in New York and Kansas City, Mo.
The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service does not name restaurants associated with recalls.
USDA inspectors discovered during a review of the company’s logs that parts of the cattle’s nervous systems may not have been completely removed as required by law.
Tissues from the nervous system of cows older than 30 months are banned from human consumption in the United States because they could be infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly known as mad cow disease.
Mad cow disease is a rare but fatal degenerative disorder that attacks the central nervous system.
Humans contract the disease by eating meat contaminated with tissues from the brains and spinal cords of infected cattle.
The cattle in this case showed no signs of infection when examined by a veterinarian after slaughter, the USDA said.
Fruitland American Meat is a small facility that employs 45 people and specializes in processing grass-fed organic cattle, according to the company’s website.
It also processes hogs, lamb, goats, bison and elk.
The company touts food safety on its website, stressing that all the animals processed there are locally raised in open pastures.
More than 220 people have been diagnosed with mad cow disease worldwide, primarily in the United Kingdom and France.
Only four cases have been reported in the United States.
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